All posts for the month July, 2012

The preacher walked into the kitchen and opened his Bible. He turned on his laptop, ready to begin preparing the sermon that he was to deliver on Sunday. He pours himself a cup of coffee as his mind races through thoughts that have seemed to plague him for months.

He sits down in front of his computer and looks at the Bible. He is anxious. He places his hands on the keyboard and he cannot even bring himself to type one word. His mind will not stop attacking him with these thoughts. He has to have some relief from their endless, agonizing, torture.

He walks into his bedroom and there on his nightstand, he picks up a notebook. Dust covered and a bit worn, he wipes his hand across it to remove some of the dust. It is his journal. The walk back to the kitchen is short but seems to take awhile. Thoughts flood his brain as to what he might write down. It has been a long time since he has written anything in his journal.

His journal is full of pages with his deepest thoughts. Raw, emotional, gut-wrenching thoughts. Thoughts that are real and authentic. These pages reveal the soul of a man who has both been blessed and wrestled with God. He knows why it has been so long since he last wrote. The pen is like an attachment of his body. When the pen touches the paper, it is like cutting a vein and bleeding all over the paper. What is inside just seems to pour out onto the paper.

The preacher sits down at the table. He takes a sip of his hot coffee and proceeds to move the laptop away from him. He sits the tattered notebook in front of him and opens to the first blank page that he comes too. He takes another sip of his coffee.

He picks up his pen. He is ready. He is not sure exactly what will come out but whatever is in him causing him to be restless, anxious, uneasy has to come out. If it doesn’t, he thinks that he may never find peace.

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The notes from this sermon are for your personal Bible study. The sermon title is God is God and You Are Not.

Pic from Flickr by kwill1229

The text for this sermon is Acts 17:22-34.

22. The Areopagus is also known as the “hill of Ares.” Ares is the Greek god of war. The Court of the Areopagus had extensive authority over the civil and religious life in Athens. At this time in history, Athens was no longer the leading city in Greece. They had been passed by Corinth who now held that distinction. In the time of Paul, it exercised jurisdiction especially in matters of religion and morality. Sounds a lot like the Pharisees.

Religious. Some theologians believe Paul was either being respectful or sarcastic. I’m leaning towards sarcastic. Why? Some translations actually use the word superstitious in place of religious. Now, Paul was respectful in the sense that he took into consideration the context of this group of Greek philosophers. He also takes care to not attack them or bash their city. He wants to point out their sin and push them to Jesus.

23. Paul had checked out the city carefully studying it until he was heartbroken at what he saw in the city. Buildings, temples, homes all had some acknowledgment of one of their gods. They had a god for everything. They just did not believe in One God who ruled over everything. One problem with Greek gods is that they have human limitations. They are prone to human emotions and temptations. There is no shortage of stories about gods involved in adultery. These gods were also very prideful. These gods still had to eat and sleep – human limitations. The only god-like thing about these gods is that they had supernatural powers. The Greek people believed in all these gods and would live their life trying not to anger any one of these gods. They even had an altar dedicated to the “unknown god” in case they happened to forget one of them. The problem with serving so many gods is that while serving one, you will inevitably torque off another and you are likely to become confused because in serving so many gods, you are likely to never get to know them by their full character. You will miss out on relationships with them because you are too busy living in fear of their wrath. The crime Paul brings against them is that the glory due to God alone, they have given that glory to other demons that they believed inhabited the images to which they directed their worship.

What the Greeks were doing is not much different from what people do today.

This I proclaim to you: Paul is about to bring it.

24. God is the Creator of all things. He made the world and everything in it including all mankind. God is superior to anything else that might be worshiped. Any other god is lesser to the One, True, Holy God. God does not live in temples made by human hands. Because of the Holy Spirit, Paul says in Romans that the same Holy Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead now lives in you. The Holy Spirit then guides you in all thoughts and decisions because He is pushing you to conform to the image of Christ.

25. Here is something that goes against Greek philosophy. God does not need you. God does not need anything. God does not need food, sleep, sex, money, or anything else that humans need. God sustains Himself. God in His grace gives to all people saved and lost, elect and non-elect life and breath and everything. We call this common grace. In fact, God did not give you life and breath only when you were born. God determines whether or not you will wake up tomorrow. It is up to God and God alone whether or not you will stop breathing.

26. God is sovereign over history. God made from Adam every nation, every culture, every ethnic group, every sub-culture. God also determines periods of time:

The conquering of nations by Alexander the Great

The rule of the Roman Empire

The US won WWI and WWII

The fall of the Berlin Wall

The rise and fall of a country’s economic system

How long a person will live.

When a person is born, where they grow up, where they will go to school and work, who they will marry or if they will get married, have children, where they will die – all determined by God.

It is not by accident that you were born when you were born. If God wanted to, He could have made you Jewish and persecuted by Saul. He could have had you alive in during the 1500s and John Calvin could have been your pastor. He could have allowed you to live in England when Charles Spurgeon was alive. You could have been the first martyr in history for sharing the gospel. However, God wanted you here, in this city, in this century for the works that He predestined you to accomplish.

27. They are like a blind person groping in the darkness yet not really sure of what they are looking for. They cling to whatever they can find whether or not it will eventually destroy them…money, work, sex, marriage, alcohol. People seek to make these things their functional savior and neglect to find the only Savior.

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29. All people are created in the image of God. Since that is true, God does not dwell in statues, paintings, nativity sets, the cross you wear on your neck, the fish on the back of your car. God is omnipresent. Nothing that a human can create can hold God.

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34. God did not bring immediate judgment on the world in past times. He overlooked their ignorance and did not wipe them from the face of the earth.

A day is coming that God has predetermined and He will judge the world. God will hold every person ever born accountable.

The resurrection of Jesus is the center for God’s redemptive plan for all of history. The resurrection of Jesus is what is central to our faith. Jesus is alive. There is no one else – Confucius – dead. Plato – dead. Muhammad – dead. Buddha – dead. The resurrection places Jesus at the right hand of God, showing His authority as ultimate judge and the giver of salvation.

Paul is ramping up to go into the gospel. But because he mentions the resurrection of Jesus, he is shut down. Some people mocked him. Others dismissed him. Some believed. Some followed him.

How are you pushing all people to Jesus?

Regardless of what they say or think about you, are you still obedient to the Commission, Jesus has given you?

You are not God. You are not anyone’s functional savior. You cannot fix people. Only Christ can. Your job is to push people to Jesus.

Nothing else will satisfy you. There is no magic formula. There is no blue pill.

Money will come and go.

Work will get tiring.

Sex will satisfy for a moment but will not sustain you because you will want it again.

Alcohol is like food. It was never designed to sustain you because you eat and drink and then you have to eat and drink again in a few hours.

Marriage does not provide you with a happy ending. Your spouse is not your superhero. Marriage is work. If you want a happy ending, work for it. Marriage will quickly show you how selfish you are and what parts of you need conforming to the image of Christ.

Worship. Most people believe that worship is a time in the Sunday service where you stand up and sing songs. Some churches sing traditional songs and hymns. Some churches sing contemporary and some churches mix it up. There is no right or wrong style. There is nothing wrong with hymns or praise music as long as it points to Jesus.

However, the issue of worship is not about style or song as much as it is about your attitude in it. Why?

If you enter a time of corporate worship and you are not expectant or anticipating the Holy Spirit to show up and work in you and the church then all you are doing is singing words on a screen (or a hymnal).

Worship is not just 15 minutes of singing on Sunday morning. There is so much more that worship is.

1 Corinthians 10:31 says, “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all for the glory of God.”

Worship is your life.

You were created in the image and for the glory of God.

If you are a true disciple of Jesus, you are compelled to worship. Your love for Jesus is shown in your passion and zeal for Him and your devotion to Him. You will be wrecked by the gospel because you understand the weight and reality of what a life apart from Jesus will bring.

Your greatest joy is to do what you know will most please Christ. What is that? Live out Scripture. Obedience to the Word of God. It is not enough as James says, to just hear the word. You must do what it says. Did you get that? You must DO what it says.

You must love God with all your heart, soul, and mind.

You must love your neighbor as yourself.

You must forgive to the degree that Christ forgave you.

You must not have any other gods before the One, True, Holy, Almighty, Sovereign God.

Worship is about giving glory to whom it is due. For a disciple that is God. To God alone be the glory.

Don’t let 15 minutes of singing on a Sunday morning be the only time that you give glory to God. From the time you wake up in the morning till you go to sleep at night intentionally seek out ways to give God glory in all that you do.

Live everyday compelled to give God glory because you can’t help it. If you are a disciple then the work Jesus did on the cross was sufficient to provide salvation for you. You cannot help but to give glory to the one who paid it all. You are ransomed, redeemed, free. You are no longer a slave to sin but now you get to be a slave to Christ.

I recently had a conversation that just ripped me apart on the inside.

The conversation was about planting a church in a town that was about 45 minutes from where we were standing. The conversation ended with the issue that no churches in our area have considered planting a church in that town because the people were a little different and if a church decided to plant there, they would want that church to be just like them.

Here are some thoughts on this issue:

Every church should be a church planting church. If the church cannot plant a new church by themselves then perhaps the option to partner with another church would be available. If this is not possible, they may try opening their building for a church plant to use until the can find their own meeting space.

When a church cares more about its fame and glory then the Great Commission, they have misplaced their focus. It is about Jesus and his fame, and his name, and his glory.

When a church becomes more about itself, it loses its effectiveness at reaching lost people.

When a church ceases to reach out to lost people they are failing to be obedient to Scripture.

Jesus did not give us the Great Commission so that we as the church can sit idly by and do absolutely nothing. You are well able to do everything that God has called you to because Jesus has given us the Holy Spirit. The same Holy Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead now lives in you. You can do what Jesus commanded you because the Holy Spirit will lead you as you go.

The Great Commission is to be given to all peoples, all nations, all ethnic groups, all sub-cultures.

I am a firm believer that all ministry is done best through a local church. For a church to plant in a new area, they should study the area, and the people and get an idea of how best to share the gospel in the context of where they will be planting.

The church is not supposed to plant a church so that the people will conform to the image of the church. That has never worked. Remember when the Jews wanted the Gentiles to conform to Jewish rules and traditions?

The church is to do everything in its power to push people to Jesus. You should want people to conform to the image of Jesus not to the image of your church.

You, as a member of a local church, have been commissioned to run with the message of the gospel. If necessary take more people with you.

Make disciples, baptize people in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and walk alongside them in their sanctification process.